NASA scientists recently released a video of the asteroid 1999 JD6 as it makes its closest flyby to Earth. The asteroid has two lobes stuck together, thus scientists coined it a "space peanut" asteroid.
The space peanut made its closest Earth flyby at 12:55 a.m. EDT on July 25 at a distance of about 4.5 million miles, or about 19 times the distance from Earth to the moon.
The researchers used two Earth-based radio telescopes, NASA's Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. and the National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope in W.Va., to capture the space peanut's images.
Asteroid 1999 JD6 was first discovered on May 12, 1999. Since then, the scientists have been using the radars to study the asteroid. They weren't able to measure its size, but they got information of its physical properties and trajectory. After collecting all the images of the flyby, the researchers compiled them to make a video which lasted for seven hours, 40 minutes.
"Radar imaging has shown that about 15 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 600 feet [about 180 meters], including 1999 JD6, have this sort of lobed, peanut shape," Lance Benner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who leads NASA's asteroid radar research program, said in a news release.
Scientists wanted to record this rare event because the space peanut won't be this close to Earth until 2054.
